


Taken (The Hostage Remix)

by Endeni



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blanket Permission, Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel-compliant, Cover Art, Dubious Consent, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Podfic Welcome, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:15:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28817661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endeni/pseuds/Endeni
Summary: Orson falls into a trap of his own making, Galen will do anything to protect his daughter and Jyn grows up in a very different way.An AU in which Lyra dies six years earlier.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Galen Erso/Orson Krennic
Kudos: 25





	1. ORSON

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hostage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20851841) by [yujacheong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujacheong/pseuds/yujacheong). 



> A permutation of “Hostage” by yujacheong, with extra drama and psychological turmoil (as you do).

It was all Lyra’s fault, contrary and troublesome even in death.

At the time, Orson had been relieved. A stray shot by a battle droid, just moments before the final defeat of the Separatists and the deactivation of their Droid Army (and the subsequent proclamation of the Galactic Empire).

A tragic irony. And an opportunity to be exploited. The Ersos had been on Lokori precisely because Galen had refused to take part in the war effort. And look how that turned out. This was going to be the final push needed to get Galen and his irreplaceable intellect on his side, Orson couldn’t have engineered it better if he’d tried.

He accounted for a period of grief, of course. Orson took care of everything: passage back to Coruscant for Galen, the child and the body; funeral services; resettling of the family in their apartment in the Central District.

Galen’s own old friends and colleagues were scattered around the galaxy, all of them working for Orson in some capacity or the other, as part of ancillary research groups for Project Celestial Power.

Orson made himself Galen’s only rock. Always present and dependable, even if to the detriment of all other possible candidates.

He personally arranged for the best professional care for the child and found Galen a new, respectable endeavor to focus on, setting him up as head researcher on a new Imperial project whose stated goal was to provide renewable energy to developing worlds — the real one being, of course, for Galen’s research on energy generation and enhancement to be ultimately funneled into Project Celestial Power.

And yet, six months later, the man was still a wreck. He couldn’t seem to concentrate on his work for more than a few hours at a time, lapsing afterwards into either bouts of crying (which were thankfully becoming less frequent) or listless melanconia.

His eyes were dark and sunken with insomnia.

“I can’t, Orson,” the man would say, running a hand through his hair as if trying to put himself in some semblance of order, “I can’t sleep. It’s the kybers, it’s like they’re in my head, in my dreams. Sometimes, I can almost see it,” Galen would say, eyes feverish and desperate, “like the solution is staring right in front of me but... when I reach for it, I wake up.”

And then, after a moment of silence: “I wish I would dream of her, instead.”

 _No_ , Orson refused to consider the notion that the chance he took and the efforts he spent on Galen wouldn’t eventually pay-off.

The man just needed time. _More_ time.

And possibly a closer supervising presence.

Orson took to sleeping at the Ersos’ residence whenever he had the chance, trying to manage, direct or otherwise squeeze every bit of focus and genius he could from Galen.

The first few nights, he slept fine.

* * *

He’s a hero of old, riding a fiery steed in his immaculate armor and carrying to his intended the heart of the beast he slayed. On the ground, the broken bodies of Jedi, chests pried open and bloody. The heart in his hand, it’s a kyber crystal.

* * *

He’s on a birthing table, surrounded by medidroids, pushing and screaming for the baby to get out and when it finally does it’s a complex mess of human flesh and droid parts. Eerie and almost beautiful under the birthing gore, but with no life animating it.

* * *

It didn’t take Galen’s genius to understand what his sleeping mind was trying to tell him: if he was to be the mother of this unnatural creation he needed for Galen to be its father as well, to spark life into its metal bowels using the crystals Orson had provided him with.

* * *

Orson had always been driven by ambition. Even as a young student at the Futures Program he’d know he wasn’t ever going to be among the best scientific minds of his age and Orson certainly didn’t have the temperament to do anything else but excel. He wasn’t going back to his home planet to live an unremarkable life. Instead, he invented a career for himself: taking charge of other scientists and wrangling their minds into a common project. He directed and organized and in general functioned as the perfect and necessary link between those busy minds and the higher powers commissioning their work.

He got into the Republic (and later Imperial) military apparatus, moving up the ranks briskly, relishing the clean lines of the uniform and the power it represented, the ability to act and do what he thought necessary for his projects, working on the assumption that it was best to ask forgiveness than permission.

If he didn’t have the regard of all his superiors yet, if the Emperor wasn’t put in the condition to appreciate his work, thanks to people like Tarkin running interference, well… it was only a matter of time.

If sometimes he had regrets, or maybe moments of wishful thinking, he kept them buried and pressed within the confines of his military uniform.

He had his Project, his beautiful battle station. It was the perfect design, full of ever moving parts that nonetheless were going to coalesce into an ordered and functional whole. He was going to deliver it to the Emperor and get the recognition he deserved.

Now, he only had a single element left to manage. What he needed was for Galen Erso to get his act together and Orson was going to see to it, even if it meant resorting to some unorthodox methods.

Back in their college days, Galen used to react to the male form just as well as he did to the other-gendered and female ones. Only to subsequently elect to ignore his impulses, of course. At least before meeting Lyra.

Orson himself, if pressed, would say he had a preference for non-human females, but he had no particular aversion to variety and was known to have been quite wild and enthusiastic in his nighttime frequentations as a youth.

It was a risk, but Orson believed in taking risks in order to get what he wanted, in order to see his beautiful vision turned to reality and finally reach the pride and glory waiting for him.

* * *

On the days he was on Coruscant, Orson would have dinner with the Ersos; then, after the nanny droid saw the child to bed (“Which story would you like to hear tonight, Jyn?”), he’d steer Galen towards his bedroom and press a glass of water and sleeping pills into his hands.

One night, Orson went one step further and sat on the side of Galen’s bed, placing a hand on the other man’s cheek.

Galen’s tired eyes turned to him. “Orson,” he said, but Orson didn’t let him finish.

“Shh, let me do this for you,” he whispered, letting his other hand run under Galen’s sleeping clothes to grasp at his cock, flaccid and unresponsive yet.

He felt Galen’s body stiffen. “What-”

“Just relax. Close your eyes.”

Think I’m her, he almost said as he unlaced Galen’s pants and bent his head to take the flesh into his mouth.

Galen moved as if to protest “Wai-” and then deflated in a breathless “Oh” as Orson’s mouth finally elicited the intended physical response.

After Galen’s release, Orson cleaned him up and resettled his clothes, pressing his mouth against Galen’s hair and humming an aimless melody, Galen’s taste in his mouth.

“Rest now,” he whispered.

That night, Galen managed a full six hours of uninterrupted sleep.

* * *

It became a nighttime routine, their own bedtime story.

It took time out of Orson’s hurried days, but the benefits were obvious in Galen’s improved performance. Besides, the thoughts of Galen’s pliant body under his grew comforting and familiar and Orson often found himself seeing to his own release afterward in the guest bedroom he’d claimed during his stays, wishing for more.

One night, Orson got up to head to his room afterwards, his erection a demanding presence behind the confines of his clothes. Galen’s hand on his arm stopped him.

Orson turned to look at Galen, at his flushed cheeks and bitten mouth. He let himself be drawn back until his and Galen’s mouth collided into a kiss.

That night, he slept in Orson’s room.

The following evening, he came back to the residence for dinner. He found the apartment empty, Galen and the child gone, a datapad left on the dining table showing the spheroid outline of an all-too-familiar set of schematics.


	2. GALEN

Lyra’s death meant screaming and confusion; a flash of light and her body lying on the ground, still clutching little Jyn in her arms.

It meant the droids powering down — why didn’t they shut down a moment, a second earlier?

It meant lying over the rubble, desperately trying to revive her, unable to realize the truth yet.

It meant being found by a group of locals and relocated to a nearby building, big enough to function as a mortuary while the living tried to pick up the pieces of their lives after the Separatist attack. Galen couldn’t pick up the pieces, he couldn’t seem to function at all. He kept staring at his wife’s body, a crying and half-hysteric Jyn in his arms, powerless to fix either of those things.

Lyra’s death meant staring at Orson Krennic, his pale eyes and severe mouth, as he bent forward to take an exhausted Jyn in his own arms and motioned a few figures toward Lyra.

Before Galen could protest, they were moving her body, shifting it in order to put something under it, then- Oh. It was a mortuary bag.

“ _Galen_ ,” Orson said, looking at him like it wasn’t the first time he said that word.

“Come on,” his friend said, “let’s go home.”

* * *

Galen washed, changed, slipped into a freshly made bed and Lyra was still dead. A few feet away, Jyn was still sleeping, exhausted in her toddler bed. The day after there was going to be the funeral service and Galen didn’t know what to do.

* * *

Orson took care of the ceremony, of the people, of Jyn, a nanny droid patiently feeding her breakfast before they headed out to say their last goodbyes.

On the holonet Chancellor Palpatine accused the Jedi of high treason, his disfigured face mostly concealed under a cape.

It was hard to believe the Jedi were responsible for it or for any of the other things Palpatine accused them of. Except, a few days ago Galen wouldn’t have thought possible an universe where the war was suddenly over. Let alone an universe without his wife.

* * *

Kyber crystals used to be closely monitored by the Jedi Order, Galen had only ever worked with synthetically grown ones before. Except, now the Jedi were gone and Galen could shine the light of science over whatever secrets kybers held. He had at his disposal Orson’s sleek new facilities and could commandeer an unlimited well of resources.

* * *

He was in his own room, Jyn fast asleep after a full day at her prestigious nursery school — and was he spending enough time with her, he probably wasn’t — when Orson came to bring him his sleeping pills and then didn’t get out right after.

* * *

Galen found out the truth in the end. About his research and what Orson was doing with it, what the Empire was using it for.

He took Jyn and ran.

* * *

Orson came for them in the end. A figure in white descended from the sky to take them away. Just like he did on Vallt during the Clone Wars and just like he did on Lokori at its end. Only, this time he didn’t come to save Galen from captivity at the hands of the Separatists or to rescue him from his grief, but to save Galen from a self-imposed exile. He came to take him back to Coruscant, to make him work on a weapon capable of causing devastation on a scale that had been unimaginable just a few years ago.

In his pristine ivory tunic and coat, Orson looked out of place, sitting at the table of Galen’s rundown kitchen, affably drinking tea.

He looked older, the lines around his mouth a little more pronounced and his hair more gray than blonde now.

Unbidden, an image came to mind: those severe lips, shining wet with semen and saliva, pale blue eyes alive with something like impudent satisfaction.

Galen shook his head, as if to free it from that thought.

Orson represented all that Galen had thought he’d finally left behind, the Empire he hoped would never find them again.

“You can come home,” Orson said to Galen. As if he had a choice.

Galen got up and, with Jyn’s assistance, set to pack their few belongings.

* * *

Suddenly, these three years of him and Jyn alone, of trying not to think of the rapture of scientific discovery, of trying to purge his mind of Orson Krennic and the lies Orson had told him and what he’d made him do... it was like they never happened.

Orson acted like nothing had changed, simply picking up from where they left off with no apparent anger or resentment, like Galen was a philandering spouse who’d been taken back and given a second chance.

They were living with Orson now, at his two-bedroom apartment in the Central District: one bedroom for Jyn and one for Orson and himself.

As if that single night three years ago, when he stopped Orson from living, had given the other man permanent rights.

With the exception of that night, Galen had never slept beside anyone else but Lyra. He’d never actually slept _with_ anyone else either before.

Galen thought idly that he should turn Orson’s interest to his advantage, use it to try to get out of the situation or work out better terms for himself and Jyn. He wondered if somehow it was what he was doing already. Or was he afraid to just stop the other man, to say no? How could Galen have sex with the man who kept him and Jyn prisoner, how could he let Orson touch him knowing that Jyn was a hostage to Galen’s good behavior, that her welfare and safety (and Galen’s own) were wholly dependent on his own continued cooperation?

How could Galen enjoy it?

He was aware of what Orson had done. He didn’t know everything, but he knew enough, he knew what kind of man Orson was. He heard of former colleagues killed in careless laboratory accidents or simply made disappear in order to hide the evidence of Orson’s misdeeds.

Except, within the confines of his small apartment, with its elegant window walls looking over Coruscant’s city lights, Orson seemed to lose his sharper edges. He came in in the evenings and shed his uniform, opting instead for loose, comfortable clothing and vulnerable bare feet. It was this softer version of him that cooked with him, had dinner with him and Jyn and later climbed into bed with him: warm, wandering hands spreading him open and a hot mouth licking and sucking and kissing every bit of skin like Orson was pressing his own mark into it.

Even in the darkness of their bedroom, Galen knew that the spell would break the morning after, as soon as Orson put back on the sleek white tunic, the black trousers and boots, the cap: the uniform a fresh reminder that Orson was also his handler, his jailer.

If it weren’t so easy, every time, to give in into the lie and let himself be trapped in his gilded cage.

What would Lyra say if she could see him now? The thought made him sick with shame.

It was easier not to think of her. Easier to try to cast her out of his mind entirely, to live his life day by day, year after year, trying hard not to see and to be content with what he had, rather than hope for something different, something better. After all, he already tried and failed to escape and the pain of failure had been worse than the constant burn of resignation that was sitting under his ribs now.

* * *

Galen slept and dreamt Kyber dreams.

He dreamed of light, refracting through his prized crystals and breaking into a rainbow spectrum.

He dreamed in colors.

The ice blue of Orson’s eyes the first night Orson had touched him, slipping his hand inside Galen’s underwear without waiting for permission. “Don’t worry,” dream Orson would whisper in his ear, “I only want your mind, I have no use for your heart.”

The green blast of Orson’s weapon, its laser beams splitting open the sky. Jyn, wearing the kyber necklace Galen had given her for her twelve birthday, screaming for help as the ground around her crumbled to dust.

The greens and blue and whites and yellows and purple of lightsaber blades. And the ghosts holding them.

“Coward,” the Jedi knights said, coming closer, surrounding him. “Traitor.” And: “They were not for you to use.”

And then, a figure wearing a distinctive red sash detached herself from their hooded ranks and stepped forward: Lyra. It was Lyra.

“You have to stop,” she said as she raised her saber and pierced Galen through the heart, “before it’s too late.”

Galen woke up gasping for breath, hands clutching frantically at his chest, pressing on a wound that wasn’t there.

It took him a long time to fall back asleep, Lyra’s image still burning bright and terrible behind his closed eyes.

* * *

The next day, it was another day of silent attrition, another day of compliance.

Galen got up, got dressed. He let Orson kiss him good morning and then, as Galen was heading to the kitchen to sort out breakfast, he let himself be pressed against the door of their bedroom, Orson biting at his mouth, the outline of Orson’s cock hard against his hip.

Orson was already buttoned up in his uniform and the softness he usually showed Galen at night had receded inside the confines of his pristine clothes, which Orson disturbed just enough to let his cock out and into a kneeling Galen’s mouth.

 _Mine_ , Orson’s eyes said. He said it with his hands, his mouth, the bitter, creamy droplets that landed on Galen’s skin afterwards, a mark on Galen’s lips and cheek and chin.

It was a heady feeling to be wanted so much, with such fervor. The illicit thrill of it warred Galen’s mind with the weight of guilt and remorse.

 _Before it’s too late_ : Lyra’s words echoed in his mind.

But wasn’t it already?

* * *

The present seemed ever-unchanging in its bleak reality and Galen grew accustomed to the presence of the phantom pain settling under his ribs, around his heart.

Until, one morning, Galen ran across his past.

“Galen! Oh, stars, is that you?”

Nari Sable, crossing the busy spaceport to sweep Galen up into a powerful embrace, the frenzy of a delivery day held at bay by the surreal bubble of stillness that had formed around them, Galen’s memories colliding with his actual perceptions.

“How are you doing?” Nari asked and she was warm and solid to the touch. “How’s Jyn?” Her green eyes spoke of an awkwardness born of losing contact over the years, but they also spoke of pity and compassion, just like the few messages she had sent him in the aftermath of Lyra’s death: _“I am so sorry I couldn’t come to the service.”_ and _“How are you holding up?”_ and _“Is there anything I can do? Please just ask, anything at all.”_

Galen still remembered Nari in her maid of honor dress, at his and Lyra’s wedding. In his mind, she would always look the same age as Lyra. But the Nari before him had grown old, her face now lined with age.

Yes, she _was_ real. And maybe, maybe she could help him.

“Nari,” Galen asked, mind sparkling with reckless hope, “I have a favor to ask.”

* * *

Things seemed to happen very quickly then.

Help came in the form of a new face at the research facilities. A Junior Lieutenant, clean-shaven, well-pressed and with brown eyes that were too old and too serious for his young face. He couldn’t be much older than his Jyn, really.

Galen set to work, setting in motion his final act before extraction, a subtle but essential action of sabotage.

He set to work on his heart as well, trying to cut out the part hopelessly entwined around Orson, together with the vice of pain around it ( _it’s too late, you’re already too involved_ ). Trying to grow used to the idea of living the rest of his life without his jailor and companion of all these years.

He couldn’t take Orson with him when he went, Orson would never leave his Project, would never desert the Empire. Not without a fight, without putting the whole plan at risk.

Escaping and leaving Orson here would mean leaving him to the mercy of the Empire, to be interrogated and probably tortured.

The thought was horrifying. Galen couldn’t see any other viable alternatives.

Because Galen couldn’t stay, couldn’t stand by and watch Orson’s weapon destroy worlds, just like he couldn’t let Jyn’s life go to waste here, in this corrupted place. His precious little girl, almost grown up, who looked more and more like her mother with every year that passed.

They were going to leave and this time Orson wouldn't be able to find them and bring them back.

* * *

So here was Galen, making dinner. Orson was pressed against Galen’s back, a warm hand on Galen’s hip, the other hand stretched out to steal away a strip of Chando pepper from the cutting board, a kiss on the cheek as tribute for his theft.

It was stew and a salad plate and a bottle of red wine opened with a loud pop and poured with a flourish into Orson’s glass. Galen, Orson and Jyn, back from her school for the weekend, all sitting around the table. So domestic, this fabricated life of his. Good food, good wine, easy affection: Orson’s fiction of a little happy family, Galen’s golden cage.

Later, in their room, in their bed, Orson pressed a chaste kiss on his lips before giving in to the doctored wine and settling against Galen in a possessive sprawl, falling asleep in a matter of minutes.

Here was Galen, lying awake next to the man he was going to betray — did it still count as betrayal when you were betrayed first?

Here was Galen, waking his daughter before dawn with a flimsy excuse, getting her to pack a few things and to come with him to the out-of-the-way spaceport picked out by the young Lieutenant.

Here was Galen, looking out of their small ship as it left Coruscant, his hand pressed against his sternum, sitting next to his daughter as the phantom pain sitting on his chest cracked open and engulfed him.


	3. JYN

Jyn didn’t remember her mother.

Her first memories were of Lah’mu: just her, her father, the tall green grass and the black sand beaches.

Then Coruscant and Orson and the Empire. The perpetually cloudy sky and the million of sentient life-forms underneath, always awake and evermoving.

The rigidity of the Empire seemed just the right counterpoint to that turmoil.

She was sixteen the second time her father fled the Empire, not that she knew enough to frame it in such a way at that point.

She remembered an abrupt awakening, a quick and unexpected trip by airspeeder, a young officer and a spindly security droid waiting for them by a small shuttle. She remembered watching Coruscant grow smaller and smaller outside the viewport and her father desperately clutching her to his side as tears fell down his cheeks.

It was a seismic shift, from the Empire to the Rebellion, from order to chaos, from happy family to hostages, from a certain concept of herself and of her existence so far to a wholly different one.

It wasn’t an easy transition. She resisted and resented it. She was angry at her father for the longest time.

It was her biggest regret, not having made peace with him before that Imperial assault that took him away from her, before he could witness the destruction of the Death Star.

Jyn witnessed it for him. She joined the Rebellion for him, properly, this time. She trained and hurt and bled, all for the day she would finally have the chance to go back down Coruscant’s gravity well.

That day was today.

The Galactic Concordance was freshly signed and what remained of the Empire was fleeing to the outer edges of the galaxy as the Republic moved in to take its place.

Aboard her transport, Jyn sat quietly with the other ground troops sent to oversee the New Republic takeover. Her seat rocked with the motion of landing.

Carefully, she gathered her helmet and her sachet and strode down the landing hatch with the others, breathing in the fresh air.

The whole of Coruscant has been marked as a no big fly zone by High Command. The only ships visible through the atmosphere were other Rebel carriers, touching ground one after the other and then lifting off after letting out troops.

Without its multitude of airspeeders moving through its cloudy sky, Coruscant seemed very different from how Jyn remembered it.

It didn’t really feel like any kind of coming home. She didn’t know why she thought it would.

Still, Cassian’s transport was a few hours behind hers. She had time before she had to report for duty.

Jyn found herself heading out of the landing platform, letting her feet guide her way.

* * *

The old research facilities at the former B’ankor Refuge were abandoned. The lab floors were covered with debris, clumps of weed stubbornly growing out of corners of the floor and through the cracks between tiles. Her father had worked there for a decade and now all that remained were broken furniture and smashed windows, a parting gift by the fleeing Empire.

Outside, the sky was darkening. Jyn wondered how much time had passed since touchdown. She probably missed her rendez-vous.

At the moment, it didn’t feel like a terribly pressing concern.

Jyn moved aside some broken transparisteel with her foot and sat down on the floor, one of her hands rising to clutch at the kyber pendant at her neck.

She sat down and breathed the dust and broken dreams of the room.

* * *

She’s standing on the beach on Lah’mu. There’s a man walking toward their little homestead, his immaculate cape billowing in the wind behind him.

“You can come home,” Orson says.

Orson, beaten and bloody. Pale eyes widening in horror as a dark shadow falls over them and the heavy sound of a respirator fills the air.

Orson, screaming.

Her mother, bending down to take a young Jyn into a tight hug. “Trust the force,” she whispers in her ear.

Her father, a hole in his heart that never mends. “I couldn’t stay,” he says, his face streaked with tears as they leave Coruscant, “the price was too high.”

“Remember, whatever I do, I do it to protect you,” her father tells her.

“Everything I did, I did for the Rebellion,” Cassian says.

She’s standing on the beach, looking at the blast coloring the horizon, a massive wave rising to meet them. “Your father would have been proud of you, Jyn,” Cassian says.

“Jyn, my Stardust.”

“Jyn,” a voice says.

“Jyn!”

_“Jyn!”_

Jyn jerked awake.

_Cassian_.

* * *

A dream. It was just a dream. ( _She’s standing on the beach…_ )

Jyn shook her head, trying to rid herself of the images in her mind.

She breathed in and tried to calm down her thundering heart. She was in a dusty room, sitting with her back to the wall. The old research facilities. There were hands holding hers, solid and callused: Cassian’s hands. He was crouched down in front of her.

“Jyn,” Cassian said. Her name sounded like a question.

There was light coming from the doorway, filtering through the broken windows. A familiar silhouette was standing guard outside the door, casting his long shadow on the floor.

“What time is it?” Jyn asked, rubbing her eyes. How could she fall asleep?

“It’s late,” Cassian said. “We were getting worried.”

“Not _me_ ,” quipped KayToo from where he was leaning against the doorframe.

“I’m sorry,” Jyn whispered, a small smile stretching her lips.

Slowly, so slowly, Cassian leaned forward until their foreheads were touching and Jyn could close her eyes, breath in, let the contact ground her.

“Jyn, are you alright?” Cassian whispered, his voice loud in her ears.

Was she? What was she doing here? Mourning her family? The loss of her innocence?

She took another breath.

“I’m going to be,” she said, willing herself to be.

Jyn never knew her mother. Her father and Orson were gone and so was the feud that brought them together and then tore them apart. This was the new era of the Republic and she had a world, a galaxy to rebuild.

“Good,” Cassian said. Slowly, he detached himself and got up, offering her a hand.

Jyn took it, letting him take her weight and help her up.

They walked out of the room, following after KayToo’s heavy footsteps and into the light, toward their future.


End file.
